A Final Battle
by NoviceWordsmith
Summary: This is one way I imagined the final confrontation between Harry and Voldemort might work out. It was written pre-HBP and pre-DH.


I'll admit it: I've joined the ranks of those who wrote alternate endings for the Harry Potter series. This is just a scene I made up as one final confrontation between Voldemort and Harry. Obviously, I wrote this before I read HBP and DH. And, of course, everything except Harry's spell belongs to JKR.

It is primarily an exploration of an idea, although I hope my writing is not too bad.

* * *

Harry took a deep breath. "I hope I'm up to it. But either it's true or it isn't, and if it isn't true then it won't much matter who wins." Then a smile started to glow on his face. "But I really do believe it's true." With that he took out his wand and walked through the doors and out of Hogwart's. 

As he walked toward the lake Harry saw the tall slender shape of Lord Voldemort enter through the gate and move to meet him at the lake. A hedge of snakes sprang up behind Harry, blocking any retreat to the castle, but Harry just walked onward. They both stopped when they were about 15 feet apart.

"So, you've come to surrender?" Voldemort's high, cold voice sliced through the night. "Come, bow to me. Admit that I'm the master, and perhaps I'll kill you quickly."

"No," said Harry calmly. "I didn't come to surrender to you, but I will accept your surrender."

Shock flickered briefly through the red eyes of Lord Voldemort. Then a thin whining sound undulated through the night. Most people who heard Voldemort laugh never wanted to remember that sound. "Ah, the arrogance of youth! My armies have overrun this country, I have dismembered the Ministry of Magic, I have pulled down Hogwarts Castle around your very ears… and you will accept _my_ surrender?" Voldemort's laughter grated on Harry's ears in a finely tuned pattern that raised the hairs on the back of his neck and twisted his stomach into knots. Suddenly Voldemort stopped. "But we need witnesses for this momentous occasion." He gestured, and three Dementors flowed across the lawn toward them.

Harry felt the numbing cold and the disorienting mental pull as the Dementors stopped a pace behind Voldemort. He hadn't anticipated this. How could he fight Voldemort and Dementors at the same time? Then he noticed that each Dementor was carrying someone in its loathsome arms. He gasped as he recognized Hermione and Ron and… Dumbledore! Each was in the clutches of a Dementor. Harry was stunned. Why in the world had Voldemort brought these three to this place at just this time? Did he have any idea how their very presence gave Harry strength and courage?

"Yes," said Voldemort, "I thought you'd want your friends to witness this moment. Oh I assure you, these are not polyjuice imitations. And you needn't worry about them mourning your death. As soon as you're dead, they will be kissed by their Dementor, and won't remember anything ever again. But lest you think I jest…" Voldemort pointed his wand toward Hermione and in a long crooning whisper said "_Crucio!_"

Hermione screamed and writhed in her captor's grip. But Harry closed his eyes. In his mind he saw Ron grinning in triumph at beating Harry at wizard's chess, saw Hermione glowing on the arm of Viktor Krumm at the Christmas Ball, and saw pride in Dumbledore's eyes over Harry's victories. Harry smiled, angled his wrist slightly to bring his wand up, and said quietly but clearly, "_Expecto Patronum._" A silver stag burst from Harry's wand and charged the Dementor holding Ron. It was Harry's patronus, but somehow it looked different: it wasn't the usual silvery patronus which Harry expected. This stag glowed warmer than silver: not quite gold, but definitely influenced by a reddish spectrum. The bright horns actually decapitated the Dementor and Ron dropped to the ground. The other Dementors hesitated, then fled, dropping their prisoners.

"_Petrificatam totalis!_" Voldemort screamed, and swept his wand over the three prisoners. Then he swung around and pointed his wand at Harry. "Enough! Die, Harry Potter! _Avada Kedavra!_"

At the same instant, Harry dropped his wand and raised both arms to the side. He smiled, and said, "_Te amo, Voldemort._" The sharp, acid green light from Voldemort's wand slammed into Harry's chest, and a gentle glow emanated from Harry creating a nimbus around his entire body which enclosed the bolt of green lightning and Lord Voldemort as well. The glow shimmered with the rich green of springtime, the perky blues and yellows of flowers, the rich reds and golds of fall leaves, and the dancing whites of winter snow.

Voldemort and Harry both screamed in agony. Then Harry gasped for breath and shouted, "_Te amo, Tom Marvolo Riddle! Te amo, Voldemort!_" Voldemort screamed again, writhing in pain, trying to avoid being touched by the glorious nimbus of light.

"You can't!" he shouted at Harry. "I murdered your father! I murdered your mother! I murdered your friends! I…"

"_Te… te amo, Tom Marvolo Riddle,_" cried Harry. Still holding out his arms he took a step closer to Voldemort.

"_Crucio!_" shrieked Voldemort, and the green lightning turned dark red. "_Crucio! Crucio!_" The red beam jabbed here and there over Harry's face and body. Harry's glasses shattered and he cried out in pain each time the red beam touched him, but the curse couldn't seem to grab hold anywhere. The nimbus surrounding the two glowed an incandescent gold and an invisible blue.

Suddenly the pain in Harry's body dropped until he was hardly aware of it. He opened his eyes and saw… himself! His arms spread wide, tears running down his cheeks, apparently impaled on a blood-red beam of light, he glowed with a gentle brilliance that seemed more terrible than death. Harry felt rage and fear around him and realized that once again Voldemort's spell had reversed itself, and instead of Voldemort being in Harry's mind, Harry was in Voldemort's.

"_Te amo, Voldemort!_" said Voldemort's voice, and then he screamed. "You can't! You have no power over me! _Crucio!_" The red beam stabbed Harry's shoulder and his left arm dropped to his side.

Harry saw his lips move as he heard Voldemort's voice say, "My blood is in your veins, Tom. You took it from me by force, but now I give it to you willingly. It's the blood of my father and mother, it's the blood that Mum lost when she gave her life to save me, it's blood that is saturated with love. _Te amo, Tom Marvolo Riddle._" He saw his body move two steps closer to Voldemort.

Rage and disgust fought with pain and fear in Voldemort's mind. He retched and heaved in revulsion. His wand hand started quivering. The hateful golden light which strengthened Harry drained strength from Voldemort. Something was coming at him from the boy, something that tried to cling to his arms, his head, his body. Each time it touched him, Voldemort retched and shook it off. The boy seemed to be projecting waves of… NO!!! He refused to even think the word! He tried to focus on the situation, searching for a weakness he could exploit. But there were too many spells, too many forces working at once: Voldemort couldn't control them all. Harry's body came closer, one arm still open to him.

Suddenly Harry was thrown back into himself. Pain from his scar and from the battery of Cruciatus curses almost overwhelmed him, but while he screamed and wept openly, he held his heart open to the waves of love flowing through him. He dimly saw Voldemort drop his wand hand and try to flee, but Voldemort got entangled and screamed in pain whenever he touched the gentle nimbus of glory which entrapped him. Voldemort turned to face Harry once again. Harry was close enough to see that Voldemort's eyes were changing. The red that once glowed with malice from the eye slits was dimming, cooling, becoming brown.

"Kill me!" Voldemort hissed between teeth clenched in unendurable agony. "You've won! Now kill me!!"

"No," said Harry earnestly. "_Te amo._ Come out of yourself, Tom. Come out of your small self and grow to your true greatness. Come out of endless existence and return to life."

Voldemort screamed and gibbered. Hatred and pride spat at the offered grace and leaped into insanity. His long fingernails scraped his neck, lacerating the flesh and trying to sever the arteries. He dropped to his knees, picked up a stone and tried to bash in his own skull. Bones broke, he bled profusely—but his own spells kept Voldemort bound in his half-living existence.

Weakened, Harry knelt beside him, unable to touch Voldemort but pleading with him. Then Voldemort groped for his wand, raised it, stabbed himself in the chest and somehow managed to croak out his last curse "_Avada Kedavra!_"

Green light exploded within the confines of the nimbus knocking Harry backward. Harry screamed in pain, but managed to call out again, "_Te amo, Tom Riddle!_" Voldemort's body hung suspended on his own wand. The many spells he had woven through the years to avoid mortality slowly unwound themselves, drifting like black and grey smoke up through the nimbus and dissipating into the night sky. Harry raised himself on his good arm and crawled toward Voldemort just as the suspended body fell, collapsing into Harry's outstretched arm. Harry wept and rocked the body. "Tom, Tom, come back! You can come back, Tom, you can!" Soon there was nothing in Harry's embrace but a black robe containing the wizened body that once was Lord Voldemort. Harry gently laid the body down on the grass, and the nimbus slowly faded as the sun rose over the horizon.


End file.
